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Hamlet Soliloquy

The character of Prince Hamlet, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, displays many strong yet justified emotions. For instance, the "To be or Not To Be" soliloquy, perhaps one of the most well known quotes in the English language, Hamlet actually debates suicide. His despair, sorrow, anger, and inner peace are all justifiable emotions for this troubled character. Hamlet's feeling of despair towards his life and to the world develops as the play moves on. In Hamlet's first soliloquy he reveals that his despair has driven him to thoughts of suicide; "How weary (horrible) ... His law 'gainst self slaughter." Likewise, when Hamlet talks to his friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act 2, scene 2, Hamlet wishes they tell the King and Queen that he has "lost all mirth," in this world so "foul and pestilent." In his "To be or not to be" soliloquy, he expresses his despair through thoughts of suicide, suggesting that suicide is an easy way to end life's conflicts. But luckily he concludes that the fear of an unknown afterlife is what keeps us living. All of Hamlet's thoughts of despair can be understood when one looks at the horrible conflicts Hamlet goes through. Sorrow, perhaps the most evident emotion, is very well developed throughout the play. Initially, the only cause of Hamlet's sorrow is his father's death. However, after reading Act 1, scene 2, we see in Hamlet's asides that another source of his melancholy is his mother's hasty marriage to Claudius, the new king of Denmark. Further, when Queen Gertrude asks her son why his father's death "seems" so important, he replies, "Seems, madam? Nay it is. I know not 'seems'." In addition, Shakespeare reveals another source of sadness; now Hamlet is alone, with the most loved character in his life, Ophelia, rejecting him. This cause is well brought out in Hamlet's soliloquy in which he states; "Now I am alone. O, what a rouge and peasant slave am I!" Finally, when Hamlet discovers that Ophelia had died, new reasons for Hamlet's...

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...﻿Depth within Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Captivating, tragic, dramatic, illusive, enchanting, beguiling, obscurely profound, appalling, complex, enigmatic and ultimately thought provoking, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is anything but ordinary. The extensively engrossing plot of Hamlet is crafted through a strong sense of tone and enhanced with figurative language and individualized characterization.
Through a exceedingly distinct and melodramatic tone, Shakespeare harmonizes his words in manner that fabricates a more captivating plot. From the onset of very first line spoken in the play, “Who’s there?”(1.1), a perplexing and eerie tone is evoked. This initial line induces the reader hungry to read further and additionally sheds a sense of wonder to the scene. The by standing and interacting characters within this scene are left astounded and confused, prompting the reader to feel similarly curious. The speculation of a ghost integrates into to the eerie tone of the play. The possible presence of a ghost implies that “something rotten in the state of Denmark”(1. 4. 89). This line articulates an element of foreshadowing, indicating something unpleasant in the near future. A sense of foreshadowing advances the dramatic tone of the piece, contributing suspense. Furthermore, the manner in which the characters speak also submit to the tone of the play. In Hamlet’s famous soliloquy he utters, “To die; to sleep; no more; and by sleep...

...Title: Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Year of publication: 1603
Setting and time period: 16th century Denmark
Primary Characters:
* Hamlet- indecisive, isolates himself, plans his “antic disposition”
* Claudius- murder of King Hamlet, Hamlet’s uncle and stepfather, guilty
* Ophelia- Polonius’s daughter, Hamlet’s love, drowns
Secondary Characters:
* Horatio- Hamlet’s friend
* Polonius- protective of Ophelia, believes Hamlet is affected by Ophelia’s love
* Gertrude- Hamlet’s mother and the queen
* Laertes- Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother, wants to kill Hamlet after Ophelia dies
Point of view and other notable techniques:
Most people believe that Hamlet was written in the 3rd person point of view. However, some literary critics argue that Shakespeare’s characters possess individuality too great to be bound under a fixed point of view. Like actual people, they act with intentions we cannot completely comprehend. This lack of fixed point of view allows the work to be up to interpretation, as it has been analyzed in a variety of ways.
Shakespeare embodies various structural, literary, and stylistic techniques in his play. He often switches between the use of blank verse and prose when dealing with his different characters. He also uses iambic pentameter throughout the play. Examples of this can be most easily found in Hamlet’s “To be or not...

...Shakespeare’s Hamlet has and intricate plot formed by the characters and themes throughout it. One major idea is Hamlet’s changing sanity, which fluctuates through the play as a performance and as a true madness. The other main theme which develops the play is the act of vengeance, with the delay and doubt that accompanies it. These themes, along with dramatic devices and the characters in the plot, add to the textual integrity of the play.
There is a duality to the character of Hamlet, as his madness changes from a performance to true insanity throughout the play. Initially, in Act 1 Scene 5, Hamlet is coerced by the ghost and decides that he will “put an antic disposition on”. This is the main use of dramatic irony in the play, as the audience knows Hamlet’s madness is performed. However as the play develops and changes, so too does Hamlet’s madness. Act 3 Scene 4 is the main turning point for Hamlet’s madness. The scene begins with a confrontation between Gertrude and Hamlet.
Gertrude: “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended”
Hamlet: “Mother, you have my father much offended”
The use of stichomythia in this conversation creates a sense of violence between the characters. It also confirms to the audience that Hamlet’s madness is still a performance, because he can respond quickly and with wit. When this is juxtaposed with Ophelia’s legitimate insanity, it becomes clear that...

...﻿King Hamlet?
At the end of the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Fortinbras enter the scene with a bunch of dead bodies and one of them is Hamlet. Fortinbras claims that Hamlet would have been a great king, but the question is why would Fortinbras make a claim to this statement?
There cannot be a strong country without a strong leader, and a king is considered a symbol of his land. Claudius, despite the bloody way he gained power, was the king. Claudius did in fact keep Fortinbras from taking over his kingdom for some time, but his obsession for power ruined the kingdom. Despite being king he is also a murderer, liar, manipulator and a villain. He murdered his own brother, stole his nephew’s throne, and married his sister-in-law, which was considered incest at the time. One quality that Claudius is lacking is respect. Claudius can be blamed for the deaths of Hamlet, Laertes, Queen Gertrude, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and also his own. If the public would have known any of the sinful acts that King Claudius had done to obtain the throne, the mere thought of viewing Claudius, as any kind of leader, let alone a king would have been impossible. It takes a man with qualities such as Hamlet to run a kingdom like Denmark.
So now the question is if Hamlet wasn’t killed, would he have made a good king or failed like Claudius? Hamlet’s qualities such as his intelligence,...

...﻿A Critical Analysis on Hamlet
In one of the greatest plays, Hamlet, William Shakespeare introduces a tragic story of the royal family of Denmark, which contains elements of politics, loyalty, heroism, friendship, and love. Allan Massie, a writer for The spectator, argues that Prince Hamlet is “an indecisive and self-questioning Romantic intellectual (the Gielgud interpretation), or as a mixed-up kid, immature, uncertain of himself, veering from self-love to self-loathing by way of self-pity.” However, Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, seems to be a completely different person at the end of the play compared to the beginning. After the death of his father, the quick remarriage of his mother, the potential true cause of death of his father, and the rotten state of Denmark, Hamlet, the protagonist of the play, learns a lot intellectually. Hamlet changes dramatically over the course of the play and teaches readers humanity through his dramatic experiences in his life.
Hamlet is a philosophy college student in Wittenberg, where has a close relation to Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation during the Renaissance. By the influence of Protestantism, Hamlet develops his own philosophy critically. However, his immaturity appears when he is called back to Denmark and hears his father’s death. He is very depressed and unable to control his emotion because of his father’s...

...Hamlet’s second soliloquy : oral presentation
In the last scene of act I Hamlet is told by the ghost that his father has been murdered by Uncle Claudius, the brother of the deceased king. Hamlet once mournful and grim turns revengeful, he promises the ghost to “sweep” to revenge. But he is tormented with doubts. The ghost has taken its toll on Hamlet but has not been convincing enough, he cannot fully trust it given that it might also be an evil spirit willing to make him change course, misleading him to murder an innocent man and be “damned” as Hamlet puts it in his words full of fear and anxiety. For such reasons Hamlet conceives a plan, he is going to wear a mask of madness, or put on ‘the antic disposition’, which Hamlet considers will make things easier for him: Hamlet under the mask of madness intends getting people talk more freely in his presence and thus he might easily find the truth about his uncle. But, far from working his plan turns to be counterproductive. Soon, Hamlet draws even more attention to himself, the royal court is intrigued by his strange behavior and King Claudius summons Hamlet’s school friends Rosencratz and Guildernstern asking them to go spy on him. Hamlet is suspicious of his own friends and soon conceives a new idea to trap his uncle: the reenactment of his father’s murder under the cover of a play...

... Hamlet
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragic play written by the famous English playwright William Shakespeare, which portrays how young Prince Hamlet pursues revenge on his uncle for heartless murdering of his father and receiving succession to the throne by marrying
his recently widowed mother. Prince Hamlet learns about recently deceased King Hamlet’s murder when the Ghost comes before him, asserting to be his lately departed father’s soul, who came back to demand his son to avenge his vicious death, a “foul and most unnatural murder” (I:V:1375). Hamlet’s protagonist solemnly promises the Ghost to perform an act of revenge on
his Uncle Claudius for killing his beloved father, but throughout the play Prince Hamlet
continuously delays revenge for his father’s murder.
People who have read or watched a play have basically seen the whole story of Hamlet's life. Even though the tragedy takes several months, it was the period of a real transformation from a boy to a hero, who never faced with the dark size of life before. Shakespeare took few lines to describe Hamlet before his tragedy. Hamlet was studying in the Wittenberg University that was located in France. Hamlet was a very intelligent person, he knew literature, art, he wrote poems, and he knew the rules of the stage actions. Also,...

...Study Guide for Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
GENERAL QUESTIONS
1. Pay attention to Shakespeare’s poetry with its imagery and figures of speech. Hamlet is written in poetic meter called blank verse. Define blank verse.
2. Make character studies: Horatio, Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes. Note character traits exhibited through a character’s own words, his action, others’ comments about him, etc.
3. Study Hamlet’s soliloquies carefully. Why does Shakespeare give Hamlet several soliloquies?
4. What are some major themes in Hamlet?
5. Compare Shakespeare’s written version of Hamlet with a film version like Zefferelli’s starring Mel Gibson.
6. As a young Christian, do you find anything appealing in Hamlet’s character and in the drama itself?
ACT ONE
7. What does Shakespeare accomplish through Act One, Scene One?
8. What are some early signs that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”?
9. How well does Claudius perform his royal duties—domestic and foreign policy?
10. What counsel and commands do Polonius and Laertes give Ophelia?
11. Describe the meeting between Hamlet and the ghost. What does the ghost reveal?
ACT TWO
12. Why does Shakespeare choose to have Ophelia relate the dramatic scene between herself and Hamlet rather than enact it?
13. Why...